Pass/Fail Grading Paragraph for the Student Journal
Nadia edits the English section of a student journal. A contributor has submitted this paragraph on pass/fail grading: 'Although pass/fail grading is said to reduce student anxiety, the evidence is mixed. A 2019 survey of 1,200 undergraduates found that 62 percent reported less stress, yet the same survey found no change in the number of students seeking counselling. Critics therefore argue that pass/fail merely relabels anxiety rather than reducing it. This conclusion is too strong: reduced self-reported stress may still improve learning, and counselling visits are a crude measure of distress.' The editor asks Nadia to check whether the paragraph's reasoning is sound, to make the final sentence more precise, and to ensure the paragraph does not overstate what a single survey can support. The journal's style requires that description be kept separate from recommendation.
1. Is the critics' inference from the survey warranted? Explain using the paragraph's own evidence.
Read the worked answer
No. The critics move from 'no change in counselling visits' to 'anxiety is unchanged', and that step is not licensed by the data.
Three problems, in order of importance:
- Absence of evidence is treated as evidence of absence. A null result on one indicator does not establish that the underlying condition stayed the same. The survey could simply lack the sensitivity to detect a change in counselling demand.
- The survey's own headline number points the other way. Sixty-two percent reported less stress. The critics must explain why that figure should be discounted, and the paragraph never shows them doing so.
- The proxy is narrower than the construct. Counselling visits capture only students whose distress is severe enough, and visible enough, to reach a service. Anxiety that affects study habits but never reaches a counsellor is invisible to that measure.
The paragraph is right that the conclusion is 'too strong', but it never names the actual defect: the critics substitute a proxy measure for the thing they claim to be measuring.
2. Rewrite the final sentence so it is more precise, and explain what your version commits the author to.
Read the worked answer
Suggested rewrite:
'That inference outruns the data: a null result on counselling visits does not show that anxiety is unchanged, and self-reported stress is a meaningful outcome in its own right, though it should be corroborated by other measures.'
What changed and why:
- 'Outruns the data' names the defect as an inferential gap rather than a matter of degree. 'Too strong' is vague about what is wrong.
- 'Does not show that' states exactly which inference fails, instead of hinting at it.
- 'Meaningful outcome in its own right' replaces 'may still improve learning'. The original smuggles in a second claim (stress reduction improves learning) that the survey never tested; the rewrite drops it.
- 'Should be corroborated' keeps the paragraph within one survey's limits, which is what the editor asked for.
What this commits the author to: the claim that self-reported stress is a valid outcome measure, and that the survey is insufficient on its own. Both are defensible; the original's learning claim is not, on this evidence.
3. What does 'a crude measure of distress' mean, and what does that phrase require the author to show?
Read the worked answer
Meaning. 'Crude' here means approximate and insensitive: the measure registers only the coarsest cases and misses gradations below its threshold. Applied to counselling visits, it means the count captures students who seek help, not the wider population experiencing distress.
What it requires the author to show. The phrase is not a description; it is a claim about measurement quality. Having used it, the author owes the reader evidence that the measure under-detects distress - for example, that service capacity is limited, that stigma suppresses visits, or that the survey relied on a single item.
Without that support, 'crude' functions as an assertion that conveniently neutralises the critics' evidence. The paragraph would then repeat the very flaw it accuses the critics of: drawing a conclusion larger than the evidence presented.
A tighter version would either supply one supporting reason or soften the wording to 'a narrow measure', which describes the measure's scope without implying a defect.